Case studies on glazing robot technology on construction sites

Glass panel (curtain-wall, glass ceiling etc.) is a type of building material for interior/exterior finishing. The demand for larger glass panel has increased along with the number of high-rise buildings and an increased interest in interior design. Typical construction machineries are, however, not adequate for installing the glass panel and most of the construction works have been still managed by a human operator. Construction processes are, therefore, fraught with a number of problems. The objective of this paper to introduce case studies on glazing robot technology for installing glass panel on construction sites. The first case is related to robot technology for installing curtain-walls in a high-rise building construction site. To satisfy curtain-walls installing needs for precise and safe work, especially, a hybrid motion typed curtain-wall glazing robot (HCGR) has been developed and applied to real construction sites. After applying HCGR to a real construction site, the second case study is directly planned to apply glazing robot technology to glass ceiling installing process. In all cases, a novel control strategy of glazing robot is proposed for installation of heavy glass panels in cooperation between a human operator and a glazing robot.